Player Attack has word that Blizzard has quietly launched local Battle.net
servers for Diablo III in advance of next week's launch of the Reaper
of Souls expansion for the action/RPG sequel. They say that these appear to
be hosted in Sydney, and gamers in Australia and New Zealand can now play the
game with sub-100ms pings, though apparently authentication and other
administrative functions are still being handed off to other regions for the
moment. On a related note,
Battle.net now offers a
new trailer showing off gameplay for various classes in the expansion,
saying: "Watch this official gameplay trailer to discover what new challenges
and rewards await your heroes in Diablo III: Reaper of Souls."